Wide Open
by Echo1317
Summary: 5th and final in Jason Aldean series. "You can never be doing nothing. But does the same go for feeling? Can you be feeling nothing? I can." Annabelle is dead. Almost a crossover, details inside.
1. Chapter 1

A/N Ok, this is almost a crossover with City Of Bones by Cassandra Clare, but not quite. You can still read this if you haven't read CoB, I think; it only has mild references to the things in the books, and the characters from it make generic appearences. Please give it a try!

* * *

Chapter 1

IGGY'S POV

You know how people say you can never be doing nothing? And if you say you are, you're lying. You're talking, right? You're breathing. Your heart is beating. You can never be doing nothing. But does the same go for feeling? Can you be _feeling_ nothing?

I can.

It's not really nothing, though. It's more like a dull, burning ache.. Like there's a hole in me where my heart was. I'm still full of shitty clichés, though. Hey, at least one thing's stayed the same.

But do you have any idea what it's like? To be in the middle of a huge fight with a bunch of crazy Erasers, meanwhile she's God knows where and you can't even see to find out where she went? To hear your leader shout that your side, the good side, has won, only to land and then hear your little sister scream bloody murder because she just found your girlfriend's body mixed in with bits and pieces of the Erasers you were just tearing apart a few minutes ago?

I do.

* * *

The day of her funeral was the worst day of my life. It was an open casket, but that didn't mean too much to me, being _blind_ and all. But I could still hear it. Her mother crying mournfully, everyone whispering about how horrible it was, and how young she was. And my friends, my siblings talking quietly in a corner about _me_. If I had been a little less dead inside, I would've been bothered.

I loosened my tie and rolled up my sleeves, leaning up against the wall Max had dressed me up in a stupid suit, even though I hadn't even wanted to come in the first place. I heard the soft click-clack of high heeled shoes against the tile floor. Max's vanilla soap reached my nose, and I knew it was her who came up and laced her arm through mine. She leaned her head on my shoulder.

"How you holdin' up, Ig?" Max asked me quietly. I shrugged and she squeezed my arm. Someone up front cleared their throat and began speaking. I only half listened, picking up only a few key words.

And then he said her name.

I unhooked myself from Max and opened the door we were standing next to and ran outside. My wings ripped through the fabric of the jacket. I let myself left up off the ground, tears already running down my cheeks. I wiped them away angrily; I'd cried enough in the past few months. That was over now. And all I could think was that this must be what it felt like to be burned alive.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**ANNABELLE'S POV**

I woke up gasping for breath. The dream I had been having seemed surreal, filled with flying angels and werewolves. Something had hit my head, and everything went black, and then I had forced myself out of the nightmare. Sitting up, I took in my surroundings. I wasn't sure at first where I was or how I'd gotten there. The bed I was laying on was low to the ground, the sheets stark white. The walls were grey and steely, and there was one window, which had a large sheet over it that blocked out all light. I wasn't wearing the yellow Charlie the Unicorn shirt I had been earlier, or my red skinny jeans, and my blue and green Converse were gone, too, which really pissed me off. I was instead dresses in an off white tank top and shorts. Even though the room was unremarkable, I recognized it straight away, and I knew exactly where I was.

"You were out for quote a while," A voice said from the shadows, "I thought that maybe the rune I marked you with hadn't taken- or it had killed you."

"Alec?" I said, blinking into the darkness. The shadowy figure stepped into what little light there was. A smile touched his soft lips, his blue eyes swimming with some kind of hope. His straight black hair was longer than it had been the last time I'd seen him, and his bangs were hanging down in front of his eyes in a very punk way. The pale skin on his face was stretched over his high cheek bones, and I could see that he was very thin beneath his thick, black cloths.

"Yep," He said, popping the 'p'. I grinned as he sat down on the bed next to me, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm ok," I said, shaking my head as if to clear it. Everything about my past that I'd forgotten came flooding back to me, stinging me like antiseptic on an open wound. I recalled the burn of a freshly applied runes, the marks that were our people's way of protecting ourselves. I saw the Glass City, and the rolling green hills of Idris, our home country. I could feel the adrenalin rush that came whenever I was fighting a demon with the angel blades that we used to slay them. And I remembered the sad looks on my parent's faces as they sent me to New York to train.

"I was hoping you'd make a fast recovery," Alec said, "Isabelle's dying to see you."

"You _knew_ I'd make a fast recovery," I snorted, punching him playfully in the arm. I could just picture his sister anxiously pacing the tile floor, looking up every so often to see if he had come to fetch her yet. "I _am_ a Shadowhunter, after all."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**JEB'S POV**

Annabelle shook fitfully in her sleep, nearly breaking the restraints we'd put on her. I flinched whenever I glanced over at the girl, her skin sickly pale and her reddish-copper hair plastered to her forehead.

"Where does she think she is?" The Director asked me from behind my chair, "_Who_ does she think she is?"

"She believes that she is in the world of The Mortal Instruments," I sighed, gesturing to the book on my right, "She thinks that she's always know the life of the characters as her own."

"And she doesn't remember Experiment 271?" The Director's tone was cutting. They might have gotten to Annabelle, but the experiments who I'd released so long ago had gotten away.

"That's right," I whispered painfully, "She doesn't remember Ig- ahem, Experiment 271 at all."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**ANNABELLE'S POV**

"_I love you, Annabelle," The boy said, "Open your eyes."_

_We were in the air, trees around us, a clearing down below. I saw the familiar shape of the boy's face; his pale blue eyes, his red hair. I remembered the moment, as if from a long ago dream, a past life, maybe. I smiled at the boy, pulling my arms tighter around his neck. He leaned in to kiss me. _

"_Annabelle!" The boy suddenly shouted, startling me. I began to fall as he dropped me, sinking lower and lower towards the ground. He called my name once more, Annabelle…_

"Annabelle!"

My eyes flew open in the darkness once again. I tried to sit up, but two hands pushed me back down . I thrashed viciously under their vice-like grip, faintly hearing them shout at me.

"Annabelle! Come on, it's me! It's Alec! Shit, Annabelle, stop it!" The voice cried. I calmed down a bit, and Alec removed his hands from my shoulders. "What was that? Are you ok?"

"I don't know," I panted, "Something's off." I thought about the dream. It scared me that the boy was so familiar. My heart pounded, my mind raced. I could see him so clearly, hear his voice in my head; telling me that he loved me, saying my name. He had flow, too, with wings that came out of his back. Was he an Angel as Raziel was, like our kind had descended from?

More memories flooded through my head, and I gasped. I was in Arizona, leading the boy around a school. We stopped in front of a set of doors, and I leaned in to kiss him-

I was in what looked like a dungeon with the boy. We spoke of death, and what might happen if we were found-

I was in a small bedroom, the boy's hand clasped in mine. Tears clouded my vision. The boy was dying, or close to it, and it hurt me beyond belief-

I was in a living room, the boy had his arms around me, holding me tightly as I cried. I tasted the boys name on my lips, Iggy-

I was bombarded with the past, memories coming to me as if from someone else's head. I could feel Alec's eyes on me, see his worried stare. But I couldn't focus on it. All I could see was Iggy. I winced and let my head fall into my hands.

"What is it, Annabelle? Talk to me," Alec commanded. I turned my head. He was perched on the edge of my bed. He looked so real- but, now, I knew he wasn't.

"I don't belong here, Alec," I said quietly. His eyes widened. "This isn't my world."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

"What the hell are you talking about?" Alec asked incredulously, "Of course this is real! I've known you since you were four years old! We grew up together, remember? You, me Izzy, and Jace! You're insane, I-"

"No, I'm not," I said quickly, "This is all a giant experiment. I'm not a Shadowhunter. Now the only question is how do I get home…"

Alec stared at me as if he didn't know me. And, if my theory was correct, he didn't. He only thought he did. In fact, he wasn't real.

"There must be some kind of back door," I muttered, mostly to myself, "Some way of an escape, an alternate route.""Don't you go killing yourself," Alec snapped, misunderstanding my words, "You stay right here. I'm going to go get Jace. Maybe he can talk some sense into her."

I nodded quietly, even though I didn't intend to follow his instructions. As soon as I heard Alec's footsteps die down the hall, I jumped out of bed and pulled on my cloths. I hadn't had any idea what I was going to do until Alec had, unwittingly, told me. Looking both ways, I snuck down the hall towards the weapons room, with the unwavering intention of killing myself.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**ALEC'S POV**

"I'm telling you, she's lost it," I said to Jace as we walked down the hall. He rolled his eyes at me and I scowled.

"She had a dream, Alec, and she got carried away with it. Remember when you were twelve and you were convinced that you were part rabbit?" Jace laughed at the memory, "She's probably come to her senses by now and will explain everything."

I shook my head, not so sure. I remembered the look on her face as she had been sleeping, the look of utter terror. She looked lost. I shuddered.

"She's not there," Jace said, poking his head into her room. I pushed past him, panicking.

"No, she must be here," I said, frantically searching the place. There wasn't really much to move, but I tried my hardest to find her amongst the scarily clean surfaces, even going so far as to rearrange the covers and open and close the closet door several times.

"Maybe she's hiding under the bed," Jace joked, "Marco!"

"Shut up, Jace!" I yelled, moving around him once again, running down the hallway, "She kept going on about a back door, an escape!"

"So?" Jace said, rushing after me. We skidded around the corner, but I had the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that we were already too late.

"She's in the weapons room, Jace!" I shouted, "She's going to kill herself!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**ANNABELLE'S POV**

I chose a blade that I named Idrial. She was long and lean, and she glowed with beautiful blue angel light. The room was dark but for Idrial, and my hands shook as I raised her up. This was the only way. The only back door. If I could do this, I could escape, I could return to the life I'd once known. And I would.

As I had remembered more, my old feelings for Iggy resurfaced. The pull, the love, the happiness, the loss. They all seemed intensified by a million, all of the wounds fresh and open.

I took the blade and sliced it once over my wrist. Blood was already pooling at my feet from the cut, running down my arm and dripping onto the floor, some of it soaking into my cloths and staining them red. I gasped, surprised at how much it hurt. I'd almost forgotten what physical pain felt like.

I let Idrial fall and cut the other wrist. More blood, but nit enough. I was feeling light headed, the world around me spinning. A flicker of doubt entered my mind. What if Alec was right, and I was crazy? What if Iggy was just some elaborate dream, and I was going to kill myself for nothing?

But there was no way. He had to be real. I couldn't live if he wasn't. With one last staggering breath, I slit my throat with the blade.

"Annabelle!" Alec yelled. His voice was distant, like it was coming to me through water. I saw through the haze as he pulled his stele out of his pocket to draw a healing mark on me.

"No," I whispered hoarsely. Alec lowered his hand and the stele fell to the ground,. He scooped me up in his arms, tears already pouring down his cheeks. Jace stood beside him, looking dazed and slightly lost, perhaps confused. "Let me go."

The world started going black, closing in till it was just a pin point. The dark waters pulled me down, making everything in my head murky.

And, more than ever before, I was completely, totally, and undeniably alone.

* * *

Last chapter will be up shortly. I had a moment (or hour, I suppose) of inspiration to type these up. Or, if you wish, you could call it me procrastinating because I have no ideas for my Harry Potter story. ;)

-Echo1317


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 9**

**JEB'S POV**

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeep!_

The sound of a heart monitor pulled me out of my light sleep. I glanced up to Annabelle's bed, where she lay abnormally still. The screen that should've shown her pulse read a flat line, and I sighed. Another life taken, and this one so young. I took off my glasses and rubbed my tired eyes.

The poor girl. She had probably found a back door. I knew she would; I had seen it enough times. The memory modifiers wear off, the subject begins to remember, they try to escape. There was no back door, though, we'd fixed that years ago. Once they enter the world we create, they're stuck there, and they can't come back unless we _bring_ them back.

I got up from my desk and unplugged the machines, removing the IV from her arm. Glancing up at the clock, I scribbled down the time of death on a toe tag. As I turned back to my desk, I saw a flutter of movement out of the corner of my eye, although I figured I just imagined it. When I looked back at Annabelle's bed, I got the surprise of my life.

She wasn't there.

"Come on, Batchelder," A voice from behind me drawled, "You didn't honestly think that I'd never get out, did you?"

I spun around to see Annabelle sitting behind my desk. She didn't look at me, but instead was examining a sharp blade that she was twirling between her fingers. I had no idea where she'd got it; even in her hospital gown she looked menacing with it. I gaped at her.

"Close your mouth," She ordered, flashing me a look of pure hatred, "You look like an idiot."

I appeared as though her brief stay in the shadow world had changed her. It was something about the way Annabelle held herself as she sauntered over to me; so sure and confident. I'd never seen anything like her, a girl back from the dead.

"I'm going to tell you what you're going to do, Batchelder," Annabelle said forcefully, brandishing the dagger like a true warrior, "You will give me my cloths. You will tell no one about this until you're sure I'm well out of the way. _And you will let me go_."

"I'm truly sorry, Annabelle," I shook my head, "I can't."

"Hmm," Annabelle examined the dagger, then glanced up at me, "Which do you suppose would be more painful: if I slit your throat or simply ran you through?"I felt the blood drain from my face. I slowly walked, hands raised, to the window behind Annabelle's bed. I opened it up, sunlight streaming in.

"Your cloths are in the bottom left drawer," I told her, and she went for them immediately. As she climbed up onto the bed and hoisted herself up onto the windowsill, I looked up at her dazedly. "Aren't you going to kill me?"

Annabelle paused and stared at me. She was obviously weighing her options.

"No," She said shortly, narrowing her eyes, "It would be more than you deserve."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**MAX'S POV**

"We've been hanging around here for a year, Fang," I muttered impatiently, "We should go."

"If we go, he'll lose everything," Fang protested, and I knew who he was talking about, "This place, Phoenix… It's the only tie he's got left to her. If we leave now, it'll kill him."

"It's killing him to stay, too," I reminded him. Even if it had been nearly a year since Annabelle's death, the wound was still as fresh as it had been the day we laid her in the ground. Any little thing could set him off. It could be a song, something someone mentioned in passing, a book, a name, anything. All of us barely talked to him anymore, because we were all afraid of causing him any more pain.

I shook my head, walking away from where Fang was seated on my bed. When Annabelle died, things had begun unraveling. Angel lost interest in her stuffed animals. Gazzy lost interest in the whole reason behind his name. Nudge talked a whole lot less. Fang quit writing in his blog. I even stopped arguing almost anything, even when I knew for a fact that I was right. And Iggy- well, he lost interest in living.

He was like a ghost. There was nothing any of s could say or do. In truth, we stopped trying after a while. He was shattered; so broken that none of us could put the pieces back together for him.

I felt Fang's hand on my shoulder, holding me back so that I couldn't leave. I closed my eyes, forgetting everything for a moment. I reveled in his touch, and the fact that it still sent chills through me after all this time. He snaked his arms around my waist, pulling me close to him and resting his head on my shoulder.

"Please," Fang whispered in my ear, "If not for him, then for me. Just a little while longer."

"Ok," I murmured as Fang lightly kissed my neck, making me shiver, "For you."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**IGGY'S POV**

The house was quiet. Even quieter than it had been during the past year. Everyone had probably gone out and forgotten to tell me. I sighed, unsurprised. I was sure this would happen eventually. I was just the poor, broken, blind kid. My heart still ached, if I even _had_ a heart anymore. There was no escape.

Well, there was _one_ escape. But I wouldn't do that to my family.

I got fed up with my thoughts after a while, throwing on my jacket and grabbing my house keys. A walk, some fresh air; it would do me good. I shivered as the cool November air washed over me. I locked up the house and made my way down the street to the park.

There was a bench there that I went to almost everyday. An old oak tree shaded it all day, a good thing in the summer. I'd been to the park so frequently that it's sort of become "my bench", and the kids who came and went as much as I did would call out greetings to me.

"Hey, Iggy," A small voice said to me. I recognized the boy as Dylan, who I had sort of become friends with. His aunt brought him to the park every day. "That lady is staring at you."

My brow furrowed.

"What lady, Dyl?" I asked him. I knew Dylan wasn't messing with me, as some of the other children might.

"The one with the hair that looks like a penny. She's got a unicorn on her t-shirt, and her shoes are blue and green," Dylan said matter-of-factly. My heart constricted in my chest. There was only one person in the whole world with blue and green shoes, I knew because she had made them herself. It was impossible.

"Dylan, would you mind asking the lady what her name is?" I heard Dylan's feet crunching the leaves as he ran. Hopefully, he was going to go ask the girl who she was, and this wasn't just his short attention span kicking in.

This time as the leaves crunched, the steps were shorted and lighter, more deliberate, those of someone walking. These footsteps were ones I'd learned to recognize. They soon stood directly in front of me.

"Hey, stranger," A voice said softly. Huh. I'd finally cracked, and this was the hallucination that my mind had conjured up. But Dylan had seen her, too. Maybe I was imagining him, as well…

"Annabelle?" I whispered, standing up. Her name almost choked me. It had been so long. I brought my hand up to her face, tracing the long memorized features. The perfect bridge of her nose, her delicate eyelids, the smooth curve of her lips.

"It's me, Ig," She whispered, throwing her arms around my neck, "It's me."


	11. Epilogue

**Epilogue: Wide Open**

**ANNABELLE'S POV**

In the wake of my "reincarnation", it seemed as though all hell broke loose.

I was immediately bombarded by a million and a half questions about what had happened, where I'd been, and what they'd done to me. The only one who didn't ask anything was Iggy. He was just happy that I was here, alive and well. So were the others, don't get me wrong, but only Iggy was not curious.

Something had changed about me after my year in the Shadow World, as I called it. I was more cautious, on edge. I turned my head and braced myself at the snap of a twig. I was more confident and sure of myself; I was bordering on arrogance. I had lost a scary amount of weight after being fed through just a tube for so long, and I couldn't seem to gain almost any of it back. Something shifted in me, and I had become a warrior. Of course, in the Shadow World, I _had_ been a warrior. The alternate persona that the scientists had developed stuck with me, no matter how hard I tried to get rid of her. She was always whispering in my head, telling me to be on the lookout, keep my head up, my mind alert. And something told me that she would never really go away.

There was also the matter of the angel blade, Idrial, that I'd woken up with. Her glow had faded over time, but I still had her hidden safely away, wrapped in a towel in the bottom of my backpack. I didn't dare speak her name, for fear of what might happen if I did.

We (the flock and I) had decided it would be better if I left town with them, rather than have to explain to my parents what had happened. It'd be better to let them keep living with the acceptance they'd come to. It would be cruel to let them know I was alive and then wrench myself away from them again.

My Shadowhunter memories were still fresh in my mind, and at times I got lost in them. I would absentmindedly reach in my pocket to grab my stele. I'd see something funny and store it away to tell Jace later. I'd see a pretty shirt or piece of jewelry and think about how much Isabelle would love it. And then I'd have to remind myself that none of that was ever real- not even my best and most trusted friend in the world, Alec. Goodbyes were hard, I realized, especially when you didn't have anyone to say them to. I'd bought the Mortal Instruments books, hoping that they might give me some sort of closure. I couldn't even bring myself to open them.

"So what's next?" I asked Iggy. The flock and I had come to settle in New York for a while, a place I'd come to know like the back of my hand. We were standing outside an old, dilapidated church, where perhaps the Institute where I had lived in the Shadow World might have been. I could practically see Jace looking at me through one of the grimy old windows, or Alec waiting for me on the steps. It stung painfully.

"Whatever you want. Rome, Spain, France," Iggy smiled. He drew me closer to him, his arms around my waist. I let my hands fall onto my his chest, and rested my forehead against his. Even though everything, I'd come to realize that this, him, Iggy, was everything I would ever need. He softly pressed his lips against mine, then pulled away, chuckling. "We're young, right? And the world's wide open."

* * *

And so ends the tale of Annabelle and Iggy- what I'm telling of it, anyway. I hope all who got this far enjoyed reading this as much as I loved writing it. Thanks for tuning in!

-Echo1317


End file.
